Google adds a sky map to Google Earth

Google Earth is Google’s software based view of the world. You get access to satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings and photos, letting you explore the world in your own armchair.

Google Blogoscoped now reports that Google has added a skymap to the service.

Google Sky lets you research detailed imagery of some 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies, taken from a wide range of institutions, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Palomar Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Search Engine Land reports that Sky is available in 13 different languages.

Note that Google Earth is not the same as Google Maps. Google Earth requires that you download Google’s (free) software. Google Maps is Web based. The reason Google Earth requires a special computer program is that it is very demanding processor wise.

You may however, search other parts of our solar system using Google Maps, including the Moon, and Mars.

Here’s a tip for you: Go to Google Moon and zoom in on the surface as far as you possible can. Don’t say that the Googlers do not have a sense of humor!

See also New York Times: In Google Earth, a Service for Scanning the Heavens
Resourceshelf reports on alternatives to Google Sky, including NASA World Wind.